John Niedermeyer is a Brooklyn-based design manager and internets enthusiast at <a href="http://buzzfeed.com">BuzzFeed</a>. Previously, he was a digital designer and editor at <a href="http://nytimes.com">The New York Times</a>.

Tag Archive for 'hockey'

“Don’t boo me when I come back,” the defense­man said this after­noon short­ly after being trad­ed to the San Jose Sharks.

It’s tough being a small-mar­ket sports fan, espe­cial­ly when the sport in ques­tion is hock­ey. For all the talk of par­i­ty in the NHL, it’s clear that there are two class­es of teams – those will­ing to spend mon­ey to acquire and retain top tal­ent, and the Buf­fa­lo Sabres.

The Sabres suf­fered los­ing their two top cen­ter­men to free agency last off-sea­son, after post­ing the best record in the NHL and their sec­ond East­ern Con­fer­ence Cham­pi­onship loss in a row. One can argue about front office mis­takes in not sign­ing Briere and Drury, but in the end, it was their turn to cash in on a big con­tract, and Buf­fa­lo was unwill­ing or could not afford to pay. (Let us not for­get also that the Sabres were up against the salary cap all of last sea­son.)

And now we have a home-grown NHL super­star in Bri­an Camp­bell – two-time All Star, spin-o-rama skater, and open-ice hit­ter of R.J. Umberg­er – now due his big pay day at the end of this sea­son, as he becomes eli­gi­ble for free agency. What are the Sabres to do?

Well, the only move is to trade him. The Sabres could not risk los­ing him for noth­ing, and Camp­bell and his agent seemed luke warm about sign­ing some­thing before the trade dead­line. I cer­tain­ly can’t blame either par­ty.

But, I can feel sad. Being a fan of a small-mar­ket team is tough, and I’d be lying if I weren’t a lit­tle jeal­ous that the Rangers or Ducks can just go buy whomev­er they want every year. In Buf­fa­lo, we have to make our own stars.

After the jump, some high­lights from Soupy’s career in Buf­fa­lo, includ­ing some of his hilar­i­ous­ly hor­ri­ble local tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials.

My alma mater Boston Uni­ver­si­ty clinched the Hock­ey East Cham­pi­onship this past Sat­ur­day, win­ning in 2–1 OT against Boston Col­lege. Now, they’re off to the NCAA tour­na­ment, ranked #1 in the nation. They haven’t done that since 1997, when I was a sopho­more, and had noth­ing bet­ter to do on Fri­day nights than go watch the games.

And, if that wasn’t enough, a guy who played on that 1997 team, Chris Drury, is cap­tain­ing my home­town Buf­fa­lo Sabres this sea­son. They’re near the top of the con­fer­ence stand­ings, and one of the most excit­ing young teams to watch. We’ve got seats at the Gar­den for Sat­ur­day night’s matchup with the Bru­ins.